W±Z Diboson Production at √s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS Detector

Abstract

This thesis presents a study of WZ diboson production with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC. The measurements are made using 20.3fb-1 of data collected during proton-proton collisions produced at a centre-of-mass energy of sqrt(s) = 8 TeV. Final states with three leptons and missing transverse energy are considered.The first study of the polarisation of the W boson in such events is presented. This study provides a cross-section independent method by which to study anomalous gauge boson couplings. The estimated sensitivity of this measurement to anomalous gauge boson couplings will therefore also be presented. Also discussed, are measurements of the WZ production cross-section and limits on anomalous gauge boson couplings.Finally, a study is presented which assess the impact of extending the inner- detector tracker to |eta| = 4.0. This was considered for the ATLAS upgrade program. The effect of such an extension was studied for multiple final states, including the WZ inclusive and VBS analyses as well as the WWW triboson analysis.

Date of Award	1 Aug 2017
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The University of Manchester
Supervisor	Terence Wyatt (Supervisor), Christian Schwanenberger (Supervisor) & Alexander Oh (Supervisor)